E.J. Dionne Jr, Washington Post: Democrats are in danger of moving from complacency to panic. Neither is particularly helpful. ... [Hillary] Clinton's popular vote advantage speaks to other opportunities. It reflected a shift toward the Democrats in Sunbelt states with large minority populations that is likely to continue. In Texas, Clinton got some 560,000 more votes than President Obama did in 2012, while [Donald] Trump ran 4.6 percentage points behind Mitt Romney's showing. Trump also fell short of [Mitt] Romney's percentages in California, Arizona and Georgia.

A panicky abandonment of their core commitments is the last thing Democrats need. Far better advice comes from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who urges the party to re-engage with rural and small-town voters. Also promising: the formation of a Blue Collar Caucus in the House announced this week by Reps. Brendan Boyle, an Irish Catholic from Philadelphia, and Marc Veasey, an African-American from Fort Worth.

I mention the backgrounds of this pair of Democrats because their cross-racial partnership sends exactly the right message. Progressivism's embrace of social and economic justice is about lifting up the left-out across all of our dividing lines.

www.factcheck.org
"As Alexander Hamilton writes in "The Federalist Papers," the Constitution is designed to ensure "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." The point of the Electoral College is to preserve "the sense of the people," while at the same time ensuring that a president is chosen "by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."

In other words, the electoral college exists to prevent morons from electing trump. If they go ahead and elect him anyway, then they serve no purpose and should be abolished.